Part 24 (1/2)
”7. That all drivers of Hackney-Coaches, employed to take fares after twelve o'clock at night, shall be licensed by the Magistrates of the division; and shall enter into recognizance for their good behaviour, themselves and one surety in 50_l._ at least; and that every such coachman shall be obliged, whenever he carries any goods or valuables, to make a report of the same, on the following morning, to the Magistrate of his district, if no suspicion arises as to any improper or felonious intention; but in all cases where a felonious intention shall appear, the coachman to be authorized and required to call the a.s.sistance of the watchmen and patroles, and to seize and apprehend the parties, and lodge them and the goods in the nearest watch-house; there to be kept until brought before a justice, at the Public-Office of the district, on the following morning: And although it may ultimately appear that the coachman was mistaken and the parties innocent, yet where it shall be manifest to the Justice that he hath acted _bona fide_, he shall not be liable to any prosecution:[80]
and if it shall appear that the goods so conveyed _were_ stolen property, then the coachman shall be ent.i.tled, whether a conviction shall follow or not, to a reward of _two guineas_; and in all cases where a prosecution shall follow, he shall be ent.i.tled to such further reward as the Court shall think proper.
[Footnote 80: Vide Act 30 Geo. II. cap. 24.]
”8. That all watchmen or patroles who shall appear upon proper proof to connive at the commission of felonies[81] in the night time, or while they are on duty; or shall knowingly conceal any felonious removal of stolen goods, or goods suspected to be stolen, and conveying to Receivers'
houses, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to be _imprisoned_, _whipt_, or _put in the pillory_.--And in _all cases_ where such watchmen or patroles shall observe any goods or other articles conveyed in Hackney-coaches, or in any other manner, while they are upon duty, from one place to another, they shall report the same to the Justices at the nearest Public Office, in the morning: But if they shall have good grounds to suspect a felonious intention, and that the property is stolen, the goods and all the parties concerned shall be conveyed to the nearest watch-house, for the purpose of being brought before a Magistrate; and such watchmen (acting _bona fide_) shall not be liable to any prosecution in case of a mistake; and if a felony shall have been actually committed, they shall each be ent.i.tled to one guinea, besides their proportion of any future reward which may be ordered by the Court who shall try the offenders.[82]”
[Footnote 81: An Officer of Police who was watching the house of a noted Receiver, in St. James's parish, being taken for a Thief by the watchmen, the latter entered into conversation with him, and naming the Receiver, he told the Officer that he being very liberal and kind to them, they did not disturb any person going to his house; and if he had any thing to carry there, he would step out of sight, so as to be able to say he had seen nothing.]
[Footnote 82: Vide Act 30 Geo. II. cap. 24.]
In the formation of such a System, it is absolutely necessary that care should be taken to secure a _regular_ and perfect _execution_, by means of a proper superintendance and inspection:--without this, the best laws will remain a _dead letter_.--Such has, in fact, been the case in a great measure with respect to several of the very excellent Statutes, now in force, relative to Receivers of stolen Goods; and such also would be the case with regard to the laws relative to the _Revenue_, if a System had not been established to secure their execution.
If it be allowed that the prevention of crimes is at least of as much importance to Society, as any consideration connected with partial revenue:--if experience has shewn that, after the skill and ingenuity of the ablest lawyers and the most profound thinkers have been exhausted in framing laws to meet offences, which are daily committed; these offences are progressively increasing:--Is it not clear to demonstration, that some _active principle_ is wanting, which does not at present exist, for the purpose of rendering these laws effectual?
This principle of activity is, (it is humbly apprehended,) only to be established by the introduction of such a System of _regulation_, as shall attach to all cla.s.ses of dealers, who, in their intercourse with Society, are in the train of encouraging either directly or collaterally, transactions of _an immoral_, _a fraudulent_, or a _mischievous nature_.
The idea is not new in the System of jurisprudence of the country;--Publicans have long been under regulations prescribed by Magistrates; p.a.w.nbrokers also have been of late years regulated to a certain extent by Statute.--Let the same principle be extended to the other dealers alluded to; and let the Legislature, profiting by that experience which has manifested the cause of the inefficacy of a vast number of penal Statutes, establish such a system of _regulation_, _inspection_, and _superintendance_, as will insure to the Public the full benefits arising from good laws, administered with activity, purity, and discretion.
Nothing can evince in a greater degree the necessity of _inspecting_ the execution of all _laws of regulation_ where the well-being of Society is concerned, than the abuses which occur with regard to the two cla.s.ses just mentioned, namely, Public-houses and p.a.w.nbrokers.--Many excellent rules are established by the Legislature, and the Magistrates; but while it is seldom the interest of the depraved or dishonest part of these two cla.s.ses to adhere to such rules, by what means is the execution to be insured, so as to operate as a complete protection to the Public?--surely not by the operation of the law through the medium of common informers; since independent of the invidious nature of the office, experience has shewn that the public good rarely enters into the consideration of persons of this description; who look merely to their own emolument, frequently holding up the penalties as a rod by which money is privately extorted, and the parties laid under contribution, for the purpose of allowing them to continue in the practice of those abuses, which the engine used for this nefarious purpose was meant to prevent.
The System of Inspection, thus strongly and repeatedly recommended, while it remedied these corrupt practices, by preventing the existence of the evil, could only be disagreeable to _Fraudulent Dealers_.
The honest and fair Tradesmen, as things are at present circ.u.mstanced, are by no means on an equal footing with men who carry on business by fraudulent devices.--Such fair traders who have nothing to dread, would therefore rejoice at the System of inspection which is proposed, and would submit to it cheerfully; as having an immediate tendency to s.h.i.+eld them from fraudulent compet.i.tion, and to protect the Public against knavery and dishonesty.
CHAP. XI.
_The prominent Causes of the increase of Crimes reviewed and considered:--Imputable in the first instance to deficient Laws and an ill-regulated Police:--To the unfortunate habits of the lower orders of the People in feeding their families in Ale-houses.--To the bad and immoral Education of Apprentices.--To the number of individuals broke down by misfortunes arising from want of Industry.--To idle and profligate Menial Servants out of place.--To the deplorable state of the lower orders of the Jews of the Dutch and German Synagogue.--To the depraved morals of Aquatic Labourers.--To the Dealers in old Metals--Second-hand s.h.i.+ps'
Stores--Rags--Old Furniture--Old Building Materials--Old Apparel: and Cart-keepers for removing these articles.--To disreputable p.a.w.nbrokers.--And finally to ill-regulated Public-houses, and to the Superabundance of these receptacles of idleness and vice.--Concluding Reflections on the evils to the State and the Individual, which arise from the excesses of the Labouring People._
In contemplating the ma.s.s of turpitude which is developed in the preceding Chapters, and which exhibit afflicted Society, groaning under a pressure of evils and Public wrongs, which, but for the different views which have been taken of the subject, could not have been conceived to exist; it may be truly affirmed in the first instance, that much is to be imputed to deficient and ill-executed Laws, arising chiefly from the want of a proper System of Police.
Offences of every description have their origin in the vicious and immoral habits of the people, and in the facilities which the state of manners and society, particularly in vulgar life, afford in generating vicious and bad habits.
In tracing the progress of those habits which are peculiar to the lower orders of the Community in this great Metropolis, from infancy to the adult state, the cause will be at once discovered, why that _almost universal_ profligacy prevails, which, by being productive of so much evil to the unfortunate Individuals as well as the Community at large, cannot be sufficiently deplored.
Before a child is perhaps able to lisp a sentence, it is carried by its ill-fated mother to the tap-room of an ale-house;[83] in which are a.s.sembled mult.i.tudes of low company, many of whom have been perhaps reared in the same manner. The vilest and most profane and polluted language, accompanied by oaths and imprecations, is uttered in these haunts of idleness and dissipation.--Children follow their parents during their progress to maturity, and are almost the constant witnesses of their besotted courses.--Reduced, from their unfortunate habits, to the necessity of occupying a miserable half furnished lodging from week to week, there is no comfort at home.--No knowledge of frugal cookery exists, by which a nouris.h.i.+ng and palatable meal can be provided, and frequently a sufficiency of fuel for that purpose is not accessible.--A succedaneum is found in the ale-house at three times the expence.--A common fire is provided for the guests, calculated to convey that warmth which could not be obtained at home; and food[84] and liquor is furnished at an expence which too seldom leaves any part of the weekly earning for cloathing, and none at all for education.--In this manner is a large proportion of what may be denominated the lowest cla.s.ses of the people reared in the Metropolis;[85] and the result is, that while many of the adults are lost to the state by premature death, from sottishness and irregularity, not a few of their offspring are never raised to manhood: But this is not all:--when by means of strong const.i.tutions, they survive the shocks which nature has sustained in its progress to maturity under the influence of habits so exceedingly depraved, they are restrained by no principle of morality or religion,[86] (for they know nothing of either,) and only wait for opportunities, to plunge into every excess and every crime.
[Footnote 83: It is even a practice with not a few of the labouring families in the Eastern part of the Town, to take lodgings in Ale-houses.]
[Footnote 84: Such is the thoughtless improvidence of this cla.s.s of the labouring people, that they are generally the first who indulge themselves by eating Oysters, Lobsters, and Pickled Salmon, &c. when first in Season, and long before these luxuries are considered as accessible to the middle ranks of the Community; whose manners are generally as virtuous as the others are depraved.]
[Footnote 85: It is not to be inferred from this statement, that there are not to be found even among the lower cla.s.ses of the labouring People in the Metropolis, many instances of honest and virtuous Poor, whose distresses are to be attributed to the calamity of a failure of employment, bad health, death of Parents or Children, and other causes which human prudence cannot prevent; and particularly where the want of opulent Inhabitants in several of the Eastern Parishes, renders it necessary to a.s.sess _Indigence_ for the support of _Poverty_.--To these Parishes and Hamlets the Poor resort, both from the nature of their employments, and the impossibility of finding habitations any where else.--They have perhaps no legal settlement where they reside, or the funds of the Parish can afford but a very scanty and inadequate relief. Depressed with sickness, and broke down and dispirited by extreme poverty, the little furniture and apparel of Man, Woman, and Child, is carried to the p.a.w.n-broker's to obtain a scanty pittance for the immediate support of life, until at length there does not remain what is sufficient to cover nakedness.--In these miserable mansions the Author has himself frequently witnessed scenes of distress, which would rend the heart of the most unfeeling of the human species.--A temporary and partial expedient has through the benevolence of the Publick, been administered in the excellent inst.i.tutions of _Soup-houses_: but until the funds of the different Parishes can be made _one Common Purse_, and an intelligent management subst.i.tuted in the place of an ignorant and incompetent superintendance, the evil will not diminish.--To the opulent part of the Community the burden would never be felt.--At present, where the most indigent are a.s.sessed, the rates are double and treble those in the rich Parishes.--It is princ.i.p.ally to this cause, that Poverty is no where to be found in so great a degree, cloathed in the garb of the extremest misery and wretchedness, as in the Metropolis.--And it is to this cause also, joined to various others explained in this Chapter, _that above Twenty Thousand miserable Individuals of various cla.s.ses, rise up every morning without knowing how, or by what means they are to be supported, during the pa.s.sing day; or where, in many instances, they are to lodge on the succeeding night_.]
[Footnote 86: The Author has often had occasion to witness the extreme ignorance of the younger part of this cla.s.s, when called upon to give evidence in judicial proceedings.--Of the nature of an oath they had not the least conception,--nor even of the existence of a Supreme Being.]
Profligate and depraved as the lower orders of the People appear to have been for several centuries in this great Metropolis, it would seem that the practice of married females resorting to Public-houses, and mixing generally in tap-rooms with the idle and dissolute, is an evil habit of a very modern date; for the period is not even too remote to be recollected, since it was considered as disgraceful for Females who pretended to any degree of modesty to be seen in a Public-house.--It is however now to be lamented that the obloquy of thus exposing themselves has as little influence, as the rude and obscene language they uniformly hear uttered.